The uplifting, adventure-filled memoir of one groundbreaking scientist’s quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants. “A fascinating and deeply personal journey.” ­—Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist Traveling by canoe, ATV, mule, airboat, and on foot, Dr. Cassandra Quave has conducted field research everywhere from the flooded forests of the remote Amazon to the isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo—all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs. Dr. Quave is a leading medical ethnobotanist—someone who identifies and studies plants that may be able to treat antimicrobial resistance and other threatening illnesses—helping to provide clues for the next generation of advanced medicines. And as a person born with multiple congenital defects of her skeletal system, she's done it all with just one leg. In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to tell us the extraordinary story of her own journey.

As humans adapt to a changing climate and planet, there is a pressing need for wild plant seed banks, and an urgent effort to conserve all plant diversity. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank is a unique, global asset. The largest seed bank of its kind in the world dedicated to wild plant species, it contains the world's most diverse seed collections. Over the past 10 years more than 3.5 billion seeds from nearly 25,000 species have been collected and stored in seed banks both in their country of origin and in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank. In October 2009 Kew's Millennium Seed Bank celebrated collecting, banking and conserving 10% of the world's wild plant species and the partnership now spans more than 120 institutions in 54 countries. The Last Great Plant Hunt describes the importance of seed collecting and the work of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, the process of collecting and taking care of seeds, the uses of banked seed, and the future of seed conservation worldwide. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written.